Monday, 20 August 2012

The
meadow larks and the crows don't exist for each other. The lark is
apparently always in flight. There is no question that the meadow lark
is the loveliest of flying things. It has a slight manner when flying
close to the ground, as one is walking across the field, of suddenly
rising, sliding right into you with a turn that presents its blurred
blue back, and the swift impression is that it is coming straight on
back first, the outline of the tail, with the two streamers, the
delicate feathering and quivering undercamber of the wings. But I
suppose all it did was to turn, a bit, in its course. Then it flies with
incredible speed two inches off the ground in a zig-zag line. But
whatever manner it chooses, one's senses lag, in picking up the
movement, a very sharp sensation, in this case. Or then, it seems, they
will tumble together and roll over and over flashing the deep blue wings
and the buff yellow breast, as it is with a slow color wheel.
Everything flashing in the sun, low, over the green and yellow stubble
of the field. What flying! The sheer exactitude
of flying complexly and exhaustively, on the air, at that slight height,
to the near ground. One sees how flying high in the sky loses its
preciseness as flying and becomes, merely, "going someplace," as the
crow does, who is better off on the ground, or the eagle, who is known
for his nest, or as man, who created a considerable misery in the
language when he spoke of himself as "flying," when all he ever did was
transport himself in a straight line, a mostly mercantile endeavor from
the beginning. Bad flight, in birds as well as man, is curious. One
hears of some birds being quarrelsome. And it is known that a crow has a
suspiciously high number sense. One can discern as many as five men
going into a building, and knows when only four come out.

Edward Dorn: from Notes from the Fields: Skagit Valley, in Measure, 1958

12 comments:

By the way, the subtitle of the post came not from the author but from the blogger.

Who in turn got it from a long tradition of birders, who have contributed the (often quite poetic) collective nouns for groups of specific birds.

Many of these are quite wonderful. Here is a selection:

A bevy of quailA bouquet of pheasants [when flushed]A brood of hensA building of rooksA cast of hawks [or falcons]A charm of finchesA colony of penguinsA company of parrotsA congregation of ploversA covert of cootsA covey of partridges [or grouse or ptarmigans]A deceit of lapwingsA descent of woodpeckersA dissimulation of birdsA dole of dovesAn exaltation of larksA fall of woodcocksA flight of swallows [or doves, goshawks, or cormorants]A gaggle of geese [wild or domesticated]A host of sparrowsA kettle of hawks [riding a thermal]A murmuration of starlingsA murder of crowsA muster of storksA nye of pheasants [on the ground]An ostentation of peacocksA paddling of ducks [on the water]A parliament of owlsA party of jaysA peep of chickensA pitying of turtledovesA raft of ducksA rafter of turkeysA siege of heronsA skein of geese [in flight]A sord of mallardsA spring of tealA tidings of magpiesA trip of dotterelAn unkindness of ravensA watch of nightingalesA wedge of swans [or geese, flying in a "V"]A wisp of snipe

What an exquisite observer Dorn is, you are so fortunate to have been his friend. The photos match well, as always. Delighted to read again the list of bird collectives, worth memorizing and observing their rightness.

Duty of the meadow lark: ignore the wind (direction meaningless) organize everything later. Just see what happens in the other dimension over the "yellow stubble of the field...complexly and exhaustively, on the air, at that sleight..."

I can't decide which one looks more like Ed, the inward craggy rainbow Northwest Crow (Corvus caurinus)at the Esquimault Lagoon or the distracting Sturnella neglecta, singing its heart out.Both of the Edwardius Dornus species: building exhaltation, some unkindness, and falling, charming, building a dissimulation towards a kettle, a parliament.

I love this, very much. The note, alongside the photos, in speaking so delicately and truly of birds, seems also to be speaking of us, the non-birds among us. But in a way you can't so readily identify -- all the better and appropriately, given the tendency of such things to take flight at a moment's notice. I will be mulling this over for a while, I suspect.

I did remember your joy in those uplifting prairie larks, in putting this together.

Susan,

Those are indeed the duties -- not forgetting of course that working with zeroes also means working with ones and twos. Duty in the old Roman sense of "office". Office hours, every blesséd minute in the world.

Brad,

"...in speaking so delicately and truly of birds, seems also to be speaking of us, the non-birds among us."

That double speaking seems to me the source of much of the beauty of the piece. The elation of the larks and the mathematical abilities (data-entry skills) of the counting crows do subtly suggest fabular aspects in the tale; which nonetheless equally remains a small marvel of close observation of nature.

There are free spirited dazzling low-fliers in the human world too, but "progress" would seem latterly to have designated the (human) bean counters for (d)evolutionary preference.

Thank you for posting this today, Tom. I love meadowlarks and miss seeing them and hearing their beautiful song which everyone I knew used to say sounded like "I want a sweet potato." Crows were a little less loved, but still a part of the world I once knew.

Something tells me the clever and extremely bossy city crow has a sensitive side and can tell when it is being disrespected.

Ever since I typed the words "...so much easier to like than the crows", the crows here have been going bonkers in the upper tiers of the redwood, squawking their brains out in the general direction of the freeway-feeder rush hour traffic, us, and civilisation in general. As is their wont.

(Though of course, they do this every morning, whether suffering deleterious comparisons or no.)